Review: Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby

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2020, Flatiron Press, 285 pages

Loved this book, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland is terrific piece of noir fiction and the first one I've read in a while that I'd actually call noir. As I got into the book I became a pretty excited reader since noir is my true love in crime fiction.

Beauregard "Bug" Montage is a classic noir protagonist. I don't mean this in the sense that he is unoriginal or that the story is unsurprising. It's just that the reader knows they are in for a noir ride and that heightened my anticipation.

A black man living in Virginia, Beauregard had a previously life as a gangster. His speciality was driving and planning. He was— and still is, —a man capable of sudden violence. He was able to leave that life behind, open a garage, and provide for his family, but then a competitor opens another garage, he begins losing business ,and his mother's nursing home is demanding payment. 

With crushing bills due, he has no choice but to listen to low-life, untrustworthy, white trash Ronnie Sessions who comes to him with a sure-fire, no risk job that will have them rolling in money, enough to take care of Beauregard's problems. Ronnie has a girlfriend in a jewelry store who knows about a shipment of diamonds about to arrive. Beauregard reluctantly agrees and begins his usual meticulous planning and attempts to instill discipline among the crew so there is some possibility of success.  Unfortunately, the crew, Ronnie Sessions, his brother Reggie, and Quan are about as unprofessional a bunch if robbers as you can get. In true noir fashion, a simple job turns out to be anything but and Beauregard and his family are soon in the sights of some very bad people.

I appreciate the complexity the author gives Beauregard and he is a well drawn protagonist. A large, uneducated black man. he is underestimated by nearly everyone and some come to regret it.  While he is a devoted family man who thinks he has abandoned his bad life, it simmers under the surface and erupts all too easily. Despite appearances, he may be bad to the bone. He is also doomed from the start as he tries to resolves the two sides of his nature. He lives under the shadow of his father, also a bad man, who disappeared from the lives of his wife and son. His legacy is a Plymouth Duster that Beauregard refuses to part with even when it would help his financial situation.

Part of what drives Beauregard is to make sure his kid have choices, his two sons and his daughter from another marriage. He tries to give his oldest, Javon a lesson in reality:

Listen, when you're a black man in America you live with the weight of people's low expectations on your back every day. They can crush you right down to the goddamn ground. Think about it like it's a race. Everybody has a head start and you dragging those low expectations around you. Choices give you freedom from those expectations.

This is the life he knows and wants to save his children from. You want to root for Beauregard but you can feel that a happy ending isn't what life has in store.

Beauregard's passion, after his family, is driving. He is a gifted driver and mechanic, both skills he will have to draw on to live. Blacktop Wasteland has the best driving action I've read. It's edge-of-your-seat, stomach clenching, adrenaline pumping stuff. The action in this book is very well done and it will be a true crime if someone doesn't turn it into a movie. Seriously. 

The setting is in Virginia and the author plays with the geography quite a bit like making up names of counties. I gave up trying to figure out how the characters get from one place to another as fast as they do. Fun for me, though, is that part of the action takes place near where I live, around Newport News and Beauregard drives I-64 and highway 60, roads I know very well. When he has Beauregard think about what a "clusterfuck" I-64 is around Newport News is and how it's about time the highway is expanded, he is spot on. Loved it.

I learned about this title from the blog Black Guys Do Read. This is an excellent book blog and you should check them out.

Loved this book, loved it, loved it, loved it.

Keywords: noir, southern noir, crime fiction, heists, thrillers, driving action, cars in crime. black characters